Employees' Engagement Challenge to the Human Resource over Corporate Restructuring in an organization (Research Paper Sample)

Employees’ Engagement Challenge to Human Resources over Corporate Restructuring in an Organization
Student’s Name:
Institutional Affiliation:
Executive Summary
Corporate restructuring has severally been met by tough resistance and cynicism in companies. The challenge that lies with the human resource department is how to convince employees to become engaged in the same and contribute positively to the success of the organization. This report seeks to identify the reason and ways in why the employee engagement challenge is present and how the same can be handled. The literature review is drawn from scholarly works which explain why the employee engagement challenge is present and ways through which it has been handled in the past. It also identifies gaps on the correlation between employee engagement and performance. Lastly, this report recommends business process re-engineering (BPR) as the best suitable ways of handling the challenge to the HR department. This is through a detailed step by step process of the same with recommended actions steps to be taken.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ITEMPAGE
1.0: Introduction…………………………………………………………….4
2.0: Problem Statement/Research Question…………………………………4
3.0: Literature Review……………………………………………………… 5
4.0: Possible Analytical Methods of Solving the Challenge…………….......9
5.0: Conclusion……………………………………………………………....12
6.0: References……………………………………………………………....13
1.0: Introduction
Employee engagement in organizations has always been a challenge to the human resource department. In many companies, employees have cynicism towards the management efforts to implement changes in an organization. The worst form of resistance is where the employees are informed that are as result of the changes, there will be job cuts and retrenchment. The employees may choose to frustrate the process and end up making the work of the human resource managers be difficult. This paper seeks to explore the problem of lack of employee engagement in corporate restructuring and possible ways of solving the same.
2.0: Problem Statement/Research Question
Corporate restructuring involves the merging or cutting off of departments and functions in an organization. It is a company wide process where employees are either merged into different departments or retrenched when their roles become redundant or no longer necessary. In the transition change period, the employees have to be supportive of the process and engage themselves towards contributing the change management process.
In the recent past, various organizations have faced the challenge of employees even going on strike in an effort to cripple corporate restructuring process. Some of dreaded consequences have been loss of crucial clients whom the employees were previously managing since they choose to stop attending to them in an effort to cripple the change intended. Other results have been the loss of company information. When the employees realize that they are going to be retrenched, some have resulted in even exposing crucial company information to competitors in an effort to sabotage the whole corporate restructuring change process.
In line with this, employee engagement is needed in the whole process. Time and time again, human resource managers have been tasked with the task of ensuring that employees remain supportive of the entire process through engaging them. Recent studies and research have proven that these efforts have been futile with little or no results (Truss et. al., 2013). In fact, the employees view the human resource department as a rubber stamp for imposing the selfish money-making decisions of the company management. Consequently, the challenge of poor or no employee engagement in the company still holds for human resources department.
The research question is therefore the following: Can the challenge of lack of employee engagement in corporate restructuring be solved? What avenues of handling the challenge are present? How has the same challenge been dealt with in other companies in different parts of the world? What are the best models for a solution to the problem?
It is important to be able to identify the challenge and the possible ways of dealing with it early enough. This is because lack of employee engagement in the work place seriously affects performance (Truss et.al., 2013). Since employees feel segregated and not part of the change management process, they may tend to develop a ‘don’t-care’ attitude towards work. The devotion and motivation that was initially there towards the work and achieving targets begins to melt down. This results in dwindling of sales and revenues. Poor customer service can also result in the displeasure of clients to cause them to move to competitors.
3.0: Literature Review
A recent research conducted in companies in Oregon USA (Keshelashvili & Jibut, 2016), found out that one of the reasons employees frustrate engagement efforts in the office is due to previous lack of concern over essential aspects in the work place. For instance, a company that does not offer supportive trainings, use of protective equipment at the work place, consultative communication and use of motivation is more likely to be hit by the same. Employees from companies that offer incentive like work place trainings, salary increments after performance appraisals were found to be more engaged towards change management unlike those from companies without. (Keshelashvili & Jibut, 2016) The authors stress that in order for changes like corporate restructuring to be successful, the owners of the companies have to ensure that the basic motivation aspects are met first before proposing new changes.
The same challenge has also been experienced in Nigeria as seen from recent research studies (Maduka, 2015). In the research findings, the author found out that the challenge is even worse in third world countries where law enforcement mechanisms are not stringently adhered to. (Maduka,2015) Various factors like job dissatisfaction, low pay, quality of work life balance and other aspects such as lack of adherence to the country’s regulatory laws that protect employees has seriously contributed to lack of employee engagement and support for corporate restructuring. The human resource department is viewed as traitors who are merely pushing the corporate agenda by imposing the same without caring about the current state of affairs in the company. This has even led to paralyzing strikes in the companies in an effort to frustrate the same.
In Europe, especially southern Europe various approaches have been used to curb the same. According to a recent journal on employee engagement efforts, (Stavrou‐Costea, 2005) the researchers found out that one of the most effective way of dealing with the same is through employee training. Through these training forums the staff are encouraged to open up and make their own contributions towards what they feel should be improved in the company. In some southern European countries like Italy and Greece, the governments have passed regulations that make it mandatory for the employees to be trained on certain aspects as a means of not only motivating them but also making sure that they have the requisite skills for the jobs. (Albrecht et. al., 2015) Thus, when it comes to corporate restructuring the employees that will be laid off, will have higher chances of getting new jobs out the skills they have acquired in the work place.
As the world becomes more and more developed and changes in the workplace increased more and more pressure is piled on the employees to deliver. Unrealistic targets have been set and pressure piled on the employees to achieve them. An extract from an academic journal (Cartwright & Holmes, 2006) points out the following:
‘As organizations have expected more from their workforce and have provided little in return other than simply a job or employability, it is perhaps not surprising that employee cynicism and mistrust have increased.’ (p.1)
The study reveals that when staff of a given company learn about changes that are to be implanted will result in some being laid off and the roles redistributed, most of them tend to frustrate the process. Any efforts by human resource personnel to try and convince the employees to become engaged in the corporate restructuring process are met with resistance. This is because the employees are already working under pressure and the changes being proposed will add more pressure on them. They are therefore very cynical towards the human resource departments due to the mistrust towards the company.
The importance of employee engagement in correlation has been analysed and the finding stressed in two research studies. In one study which deals with the importance of employee engagement, (Shuck, 2011) the author asserts that the best way to boos...